Promoters Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy and Jay Z, big boss of Roc Nation Sports, are putting their money where their mouth is.
Jay Z, promoter of middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, certainly backs his man to win his megafight against former unified junior middleweight titlist Saul "Canelo" Alvarez on Nov. 21 (HBO PPV) at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. And, of course, De La Hoya is picking his man Alvarez to beat Cotto and become champion.
So, naturally, the multimillionaires decided to wager on the outcome of the fight with the bet coming about after Jay Z and De La Hoya visited the training camps of their fighters last week and came away impressed with what they saw and boasted about their fighter's chances for victory. And, hey, their bet will even drum up a little publicity for the fight!
Each man agreed to put up $100,000, with the loser of the bet donating the money to the charity of the winner's choice. If Cotto wins, De La Hoya will donate his cash to the Shawn Carter Foundation. And if Alvarez wins, Jay Z will donate his loot to the White Memorial Medical Center's cancer unit.
Alvarez is the betting favorite at the Las Vegas casinos, but De La Hoya has a brutal history of picking winners, in large part because when Golden Boy was promoting Floyd Mayweather bouts against Golden Boy fighters, De La Hoya always backed the Golden Boy fighter and Mayweather won each and every one of those fights.